I said - "Diwali"

Traditions are history that forgot its time! – It is often said and widely believed.

To understand and come to a definitive conclusion on the significance of all the symbolic attributes of any particular religion/tradition is a rather perilous attempt to understand the importance of the same! It is often debated in the social circles whether it is wise to follow festivals in a way that has been done for years or be relatively embracing and celebrate in synonymy with the cultural practices of region.

Celebrating Indian festivals on a foreign soil has been a rather anthropologically enlightening experience!

I just returned from a party that saw people gathering and dancing to welcome and celebrate the happy occasion. What was quite controversial in this version of the festivity was that it was a pardonable act to consume alcohol and welcome the Goddess ( To bring more money - to drink more !). Goddess Lakshmi was being welcomed in a way that is quite unlikely in the rigid Indian Society where meat and alcohol, on a general scale, is forbidden on auspicious occasion. Muffins replaced mithai (Indian sweets) and alcohol replaced its absence ! J

It is perhaps worth a thought whether any deviation (contrasting in this case) from existing traditions spell doom or bring in more contextual meaning and retouch to celebrations. The problem with most people is that they confine their outlook of Religion and its practices to their perspective and what’s more dangerous is that anything beyond their conception is fake and evil. These Diwali parties could top the list of to-malign-list of RSS or Ram Sena Sevaks or grab the primetime slot in the mediocrity-hungry media for a Debate . How can anyone consume alcohol or dance with women on such an auspicious occasion ? Who gave the right to these kids to distort Indian culture and tradition ? It reflects on our upbringing ! . These are common accusations you can expect if you are on the other side.

But ! Hang on !

Haven’t we missed the whole essence of things and gone over the board with taking life too literally ?

Diwali is a festival that shares diverse histories in various Religions and regions – While in Jainism it is marked to celebrate the spiritual enlightenment of Mahavira, the Sikhs celebrate it to mark the home-coming of Guru Har Gobind.It is also,to most, the celebration of homecoming of Lord Raam. It is interesting to note that the underlying essence of all these events is symbolism of the victory of evil over the good , the celebration of the Light within every individual that guides the soul to a realm beyond reality. It is the occasion to rejoice the spirit of Mankind in its entirety and the route taken to attain this level of personal gratification is indeed purely personal.

Why isn’t it socially legal to experiment new flavours in festivities? If Indian culinary heritage could adapt and embrace Potato (introduced by European explorers) and re-introduce it to the world in over 200 hundred different varieties of cooking it then why not let the natural cycle of mutant traditions follow its course ? Why have festivals diverged significantly from their importance of being a symbolic of Celebration of Humanity and why have we narrowed our outlook and celebrations to what we have inherited in form of rituals and customs. What should anyone suffert guilt and regret for having decided to live life happily and being happy is so relative ! Is even the whole debate of westernising Indian cultural practices a valid one or is it just an act for the sake of its being ?! I felt the happiness in everyone when they danced to the tunes of Bollywood music in an inebriated joy . They were having a gala time and the reason for it was to celebrate the Festival of Light that represents so many things for so many people.

I enjoy peeking into the windows of curiosity and making myself believe completely opposite of what I would rather otherwise . It is just an effort to spark cultural thought process and it is nice to challenge the strongholds of religious and chronological inheritance with an outlook completely different. While I don’t mean to either endorse or disregard the new practices and nor do I mean to obstinately question the conventional practices simply because they are age-old, My attempt is to sincerely put to question some of our very basic understandings of Society and Culture and accept an answer that justifies itself. I would love to see a society that ceases to accept and never stops investigating into relevances of various of our understandings. In this way we would at-least emerge more confident in justifying what we do ! The light that guides Human Evolution is Knowledge and that comes with constant and stubborn curiosity. Lets celebrate the festival of "Lights" !

I love to hear J

Shubh Diwali

Just a matter of Perspectives !

If I were to believe myself for believing in looking at life from a mathematical perspective, I would like to start with understanding, what perhaps is the most consequential ideology of life – The Idea of Religion !

Its somehow hard to understand and even harder to trust the understanding that life is perhaps all a matter of perspectives and all the definitions that claim to deconstruct this surreal term to justify existance , exist for their own sake ! The catalyst that initiated a cascading series of thought-reactions in my mind about Religion and its beauty is perhaps ironic for its product but its interesting in a way that’s more important than the origin.

The greatest invention of mankind in the years of its existance , in my belief, is the concept of Religion. The vast expanse of thought that the concept encompasses renders a bipolar nature to the matter of Religion. It has been very successful in installing surreal system of faith in a rather ferocious species of creation. The fear of the omnipresent and the concept of a higher being could perhaps not be anything more than human perspective and hunger for something beyond their reach but still its very interesting indeed to observe and understand how ths etherial “concept” has rather given birth to itself and thereby claiming an actual identity. If I were to explain and present the concept of Religion in a systematic and mathematical way , here would be it

Thoughts * Belief = Reality
Belief * Reality = Faith
Faith * Reality = Religion

Its interesting how something that does not claim any existance , is revered upon as the omnipresent. Its interesting because human race seems to be in a constant act of re-enforcing their figment of imagination with another piece of imagination ! Its interesting to observe that something so chaotic and random as evolution rests on an organized underbelly of surreal-policing – the doctrines of which are constructed, framed and followed – all by us – the creators ! Yet this system is as much a property of ours as it is not, it is the construct of the race at large to which every individual contributes and yet it is so far away from the possibilities of human thought !

Not very often do we ever dare to contemplate on these realities of life as they somehow spark a sense of “escalation/elevation” in all of us . We, as a race , seem to have already defined our limits and are happy to believe that no matter how farther we travel intellectualy there is always a horizon and horizons can never be met ! This very surreal and abstract system of belief has been a key to the growth of civilizations. Religion has categorically differentiated humans in various groups but well these groups are just various outlooks that we can have towards life itself.

I often find this un-passable roadblock in my intellectual pursuit , a dark end that opens to million of roads , each of which lead to the same destination and interestingly in the same co-ordinates of space and time ! As I end this seemingly confused piece of writing , my only aim is to have you thinking !

What is the way we see the world is different with every person. What if my Red is your Blue and your Blue my Black ? We have always been taught relatively and what if the “Absolute” is absolutely relative ? I was always taught to call the colour that I see as , say, White but what if I don’t see White in precisely the same way as you do ? What is I see White as you see Black ?

Or perhaps life is just a matter of perspectives. Things are reality because “we” would like to believe so ! and belief in reality re-inforces the belief itself and gives birth to faith and belief in faith is Religion ! What if life was a high-order mathematical game , of which, we are just one small part. Our beliefs and ideals are purely a work of “us” and if not us who else would end the bloody savage called religious-absolute-righteousness ! We are all a part of higher consciousness that’s beyond the reach of an individual. Its time and the time warrants some awareness.

The Question is – To be or not to Be !